SERVE at Home - Make Meal Kits for Casa de Esperanza de los Ninos

Activity Description

SERVE at Home is a way for your family to spread kindness and help our community on your own, anytime, anywhere! We want to keep Houston volunteering all week long!

For this activity, your family will make meal kits for the families of Casa de Esperanza de los Niños. These meal kits give families the opportunity to make a homemade, delicious meal. You will assemble non-perishable items needed for a meal, such as canned vegetables, canned chicken or tuna, pasta, or mashed potatoes that Casa de Esperanza can distribute to their families. Share one of your favorite recipes and provide items needed to make the dish!

You will need to provide the supplies for this activity. Please make sure any supplies used do not have an expiration date within two weeks of your planned delivery. You can complete this activity on your own anytime during the month.

Activity Directions

You will need the following:

• Ziploc bags and/or paper grocery bags to hold the meal kits.
• A print out of your favorite family recipe that you want to share with a family at Casa de Esperanza!
• The non-perishable ingredients needed to make your family favorite recipe (such as recipes for chili/chili mac, pasta, casseroles like taco casserole, chicken rice casserole, tuna noodle casserole, etc.). A great resource to consult is https://www.southernplate.com/bags-to-dishes-never-wonder-whats-for-supper-again/
  • The link above gives a list of recipe suggestions for meals that use all nonperishable items, how to substitute perishable items for nonperishable items and some meals that include a few perishable items (note that asking the families to provide some of their own perishable items is fine). It also includes tips for assembling meal kits/bags. 
• Materials to make cards with encouraging notes: colorful, construction paper, markers or crayons, stickers, stamps, or other art supplies you have at home

As a family, select a recipe and print it out for assembling the meal kit. Have fun grocery shopping for the ingredients for the recipe. Place the non-perishable food items and the recipe in the bag to make the meal. Make a greeting card to include in the meal kit! 

Note the expiration date on food items. Casa de Esperanza cannot accept anything that will expire within 2-3 weeks of when you deliver the meal kit.

We recommend making 1-2 meal kits, but any amount you can put together is appreciated.

Drop-Off Address:  

You can deliver meal kits/donations on Wednesdays and Thursdays between 9:30am-4:30pm to the Casa de Esperanza office.

2911 Corder St.

Houston, TX 77054.

If you need to deliver on a different day, contact their office at 713-529-0639 to coordinate a different delivery day and time.  Please be sure to say that you are delivering with Generation SERVE.

Tell Us When You're Finished

Please complete this form to let us know you've completed the activity! We would love to see pictures of your family working together to complete this activity, so please take a photo to share with us! You can submit the photo through our form.

Activity Requirements

• This activity is great for all ages. 
• Our program is designed to be a family experience. We want parents and caregivers to work alongside their child(ren) for all our Family Volunteering activities.

More About Our Partner

Casa de Esperanza de los Niños strives to break the cycle of child abuse and neglect for at-risk infants, children and their families by providing comprehensive residential and family support programs that transform people and communities.

Support Generation SERVE

A $10 donation would help us continue developing new activities and ways for families to spread kindness throughout the community. You also can become a family sponsor to support us in providing fun volunteer opportunities for other families! Thank you for your support and generosity! We appreciate it!